Imagine Breaker (A Certain Arrogant Horse)
The Imagine Breaker (,Gensō Goroshi (Imajin Bureikā)?, lit. "Illusion Killer") is the mysterious power that currently resides exclusively within Kamijou Touma's right hand, allowing him to negate anything supernatural such as esper powers, magic powers, and even to his own admittance, God's miracles. More specifically, it is the power that can only exist in the right hand of Kamijou Touma due to "Imagine Breaker" finding meaning in being inside Touma's right hand. Neither magic nor esper ability, nor Gemstone-derived the Imagine Breaker has long been under intense speculation both in-universe and in the fandom, with only a few people in-universe such as Aleister Crowley knowing fully of what it entails. Etymology Seemingly a reference to Touma's Imagine Breaker, Touma incorporates the meaning of the kanji used for his ability, which means Illusion killer, into his famous catchphrase which can be translated into English as: "I will destroy that illusion of yours." Interestingly in the novels, the kanji for the Imagine Breaker is sometimes changed to (,Ore no Migite?, lit. My right hand). History Not much is known about the mysterious Imagine Breaker, but it has been confirmed that someone else, perhaps many others, have had the Imagine Breaker before Kamijou Touma. This power is terribly documented by the magic side. However, according to Ollerus, in ancient times, powers similar to the Imagine Breaker, showed themselves, taking different forms: weapons in the hands of great heroes, frescos with rumored to be able to heal the diseases, and others took the form of caves and functioned as trials for those who entered them. Although, he is unsure if they are related to the Imagine Breaker, or if those hopes combined together into another form as they were lost and have naturally appeared here. Seemingly, only a few number people know something about the Imagine Breaker. Terra of the Left for example, deduced Touma having amnesia since he is apparently not using the Imagine Breaker to its full capacity, and hints that Imagine Breaker might actually be an ability that might extend itself further away from its bearer's right hand, based on Terra's personal knowledge of Fiamma of the Right's Holy Right ability. Even then, his conjecture, may have been lacking as well, as even Fiamma of the Right, was unaware of the terrible power that lurks within Touma's right hand after severing it from Touma. It has been revealed that the Imagine Breaker can choose which person can wield it, as after being severed from Touma several times in the past, it has still remained in his possession. According to Fiamma of the Right, the current generation is still attached to Touma, referring to it as "the right hand is only the right hand when it is growing from his right shoulder," referencing his failure in obtaining Imagine Breaker from Touma in the past. It is unknown who previously wielded the previous Imagine Breaker. According to Othinus, Imagine Breaker can exist even in objects as well, as she noted it takes different forms each time the last one is destroyed. She also pointed out that if she were to destroy everything in existence, Imagine Breaker could potentially even find its way to her. Principles Primary features Touma's Imagine Breaker, negates both esper powers and magic. Moreover, through several circumstances, even divine powers, such as, in his own admission, the miracles of god, and more prominently his defeating of Archangel Gabriel in World War III. Supplementary features In two different instances, Touma demonstrated that he can dispel to an extent the effects of an area-wide attack. One instance is blocking the effects of electricity Misaka Mikoto created, by putting his right hand out to act as a lightning rod for the electricity to be directed to his right hand and Imagine Breaker as opposed to another part of his body without the Imagine Breaker's protection. The other one is blocking a portion of Kaitabi Hatsuya's Graviton from hitting the people behind him using Imagine Breaker as a shield. Nonetheless, it is required for him to have physical contact to initiate the effects of his power. It seems that Imagine Breaker has a permanent canceling effect on some supernatural objects, as seen when it robbed Index's clothes of their Walking Church. Imagine Breaker can even ignore the overall actual weight or force behind of which an inanimate object has supernatural power concentrated on, as seen when Touma blocked a full-powered punch from a massive golem without showing signs of obvious effort, before the golem collapsed on itself due to the magic that manifested it being abolished by Imagine Breaker's power. He did, however; "almost break his hand" in said exchange. Another example is when Touma blocks Acqua of the Back's magic enhanced attack while in a weakened state, where before Touma would have been easily overpowered by Acqua's attack if it was just a normal attack with pure brute force and not magic. Removal from the body It has become apparent, that in the event that the right hand is severed from the body, as in with Touma's case in several occasions. An invisible and ineffable power appears to take in Imagine Breaker's stead. This power's true form is currently unknown, though it is enough to bring fear upon Fiamma of the Right upon witnessing it, it was not for the Imagine Breaker ability, but for it to act as a medium for his Holy Right to gain a corporeal form. Though was weak enough to be utterly crushed by Othinus. Touma can however, communicate with the power, and could somehow force it to yield to his will. In Touma's first "talk" with the invisible thing, an even greater power swallowed what had appeared and suppress it. There is currently no information in what this great power is, or if it is simply Touma's will power that took control. Finally, after the right hand or right arm is torn or severed from Touma's body, it can reconnect miraculously back to the body as if was not separated and all, this includes bones, vessels, and nerves. During Touma's first separation from his right arm, Heaven Canceller references this and calls his right arm a piece of fantasy. However, it has been shown that in the event that the removed right arm cannot be reconnected to Touma, a new arm takes the place where the old arm was in Touma's body, and from there, the Imagine Breaker disappears from the removed arm and transfers to the new arm. It is unknown what conditions are required to fulfill this, but it can be presumed to be Imagine Breaker's relationship with Touma. Weaknesses and Limitations Despite of the extents of Touma's abilities, Touma might not have the ability to negate all "artificial" supernatural abilities, such as the Power of the World and leylines. Some objects such as the Queen's Fleet and Innocentius require Touma to target the core or some other important piece that provides power to them in order for his Imagine Breaker to effectively negate them. Also, since the Imagine Breaker is concentrated to only Touma's right hand, Touma is truly helpless against a wave of magic attacks in great numbers, as what happened with Misawa Cram School and the Gregorian Chant Replica performed on him. Furthermore, since the effects of Touma's Imagine Breaker is always singular, as in it can only negate, magicians such as Oriana Thomson can make use of this to make a trap against Touma after negating a spell. So far there are only a few attacks which can "surpass" Kamijou Touma's Imagine Breaker power canceling speed, as such he is unable to completely destroy them despite continued exposure to the Imagine Breaker. Index's Dragon Breath, Stiyl's Innocentius, Fiamma's flaming sword, Accelerator's wings in his awakened state, and Birdway's Summoned Telesma Explosion. The Curtana Original's Dimensional Cleavage Formula is a different case, as it does not fall under the 'surpassing cancelling speed' category, but 'After this window of opportunity it can't be negated' category. It would imply that the phenomenon that Curtana had brought upon have become normalized and is no longer considered a supernatural phenomena. Kanzaki stated Imagine Breaker can negate a dimensional cutter attack if it comes into contact within 1.25 seconds. While the Imagine Breaker does negate some forms of psychic powers and magic used on his body out right like teleportation and Healing Magic this is not guaranteed. After his first run in with Aureolus, he wipes Touma's memories of what had transpired in the school until touches his right hand to his head negating the spell. Then later when they fought again he was nearly incapacitated by the Suffocate command until stuff one of his fingers deep into his throat to destroy the spell. When Cendrillon finds and drags Touma into a nearby alleyway she discovers that he had been shot and immediately tries to use healing magic on him but the Imagine Breaker simply negates her attempts. Though the spell was not negated until the light of the spell spread from his wound to the rest of his body where it reached his right hand and then negated. In the Daihaiseisai incident Shokuhou Misaki is shown to have knowledge of the Imagine Breaker, but also showed that she is able to bypass it's normal automatic negation of Telepathy. During his trip to Russia, Touma makes use of the Imagine Breaker's limitations for the first time. Due to Imagine Breaker not fully negating supernatural phenomena, Touma has learned to use it to interfere via "negation and disruption". Normally, Imagine Breaker negates any supernatural power or object upon contact, but because of its limits, if a supernatural power/object is sufficiently powerful or massive enough in size it will not be completely negated right away or it will take a longer time to fully defeat it. It's during this state of cancellation that Touma can actually physically touch and grab the power/object, negating and disrupting it instead of instantly destroying it. This, of course, is usually more of a disadvantage than an advantage of Imagine Breaker. Still, during Touma's fight with Accelerator in Russia, Touma pulled one of Accelerator's black wings to throw Accelerator off balance and dodge the attack when Accelerator struck Touma with 100 wings that he summoned. That single touch was capable of negating the vector controlling power of said wing as well. Finally, according to Index's speculation, Imagine Breaker negates God's blessings, which is the luck people have, as is the reason why Touma is misfortunate, much to his horror. Furthermore, she speculates that his Imagine Breaker may also negate the red string of fate, which would also explain why girls gather around him without effort. Effects on Jusenkyo The magic of Jusenkyo performs an extremely powerful form of essential transfiguration, so powerful that some disagree that it should even be called essential transfiguration as it seems to integrate with the true essence of the cursed individual. This makes it a supernatural phenomena and thus it cannot be fully negated. Think of it as similar to the spell Soon Li used at the end of Most Unlikely of Friends OVA 3 that rendered the individual exposed to it invulnerable to magic of all forms. It didn’t cure the curse but made it no longer able to function, so the end result is pretty much the same. However while that spell was permanent the effects of Imagine Breaker will be temporary. So it will be able to disrupt the curse but not cure it. What this means is that if Touma is touching Ranma-Kun and he is splashed with water he wouldn’t change the same if he is touching Ranma-chan. However if he touches a victim while they are in their cursed form nothing would happen. Effects on natural forces The Imagine Breaker, however, is unable to negate the Power of the World, its ley lines, the lifeforces and souls of human beings, due to them being natural, despite being supernatural as well. According to Leivinia Birdway this is because the Imagine Breaker normalizes things that are of abnormal values, specifically, it destroys things that have had their harmony taken. However, things such as the aforementioned examples, have always been uniform from the start despite being supernatural in nature. Touma's Imagine Breaker can only destroy things that had their harmony's taken from them, as such something that had been abnormal from the start, such as the power of the world will never not be negated by the Imagine Breaker. Furthermore, Leivinia states that a cycle was probably set up from the start to be like that, and not how much the world can replenish power. Effects on Ki There are two types of ki manipulation passive and active. Passive ki manipulation is what allows martial artist to speed up and strengthen their movements, cause their limbs to become nearly indestructible weapons that can shatter stone or defy the so-called laws of physics. All of powerful martial artist in Ranma ½ began training usually at the moment they can walk and their training allows them to slowly fortify their cellular structure making it more resilent and their metabolism biologically more effective thus it becomes the new norm. it is an endless cycle that produces the martial artist we see in the series. A good example of this Shizou Heiwajima from Durarara. Shizuo acquired super strength pretty early on in life, but not the physical resistance that usually goes with it. The end result was that he spent tossing cars as he did in the hospital from the resulting fractures until around high school. After years of abuse his body managed to build up enough resistance to withstand his strength. That is what passive manipulation is the trainee starts off as normal and slowly builds up to super human. Active ki manipulation involves changing the direction and flow of energy by changing its expression. It's all a matter of will and mind. Möko Takabisha, Soul of Ice, Shishi Houkou Dan, Hidden Weaponry, ect are all examples of active ki manipulation. The Imagine Breaker is unable to negate passive ki manipulation as there is nothing magical in the way it alters the physical body. Ki builds on itself every time it is used while improving the clarity of user’s soul, making it easier to gather energy and as the natural state of the soul changes the body changes the new level of energy contained within it. Thus it becomes the new altered state making it immune to Imagine Breaker. However active Ki manipulation involves forcibly altering the natural state of ki so are susceptible. A great way to describe the difference between the two is the Bakusai Tenketsu a technique that allows user to shatter rocks and similar substances with a finger the side effect of the training to master the technique makes the user nearly invulnerable to physical attacks. The side effect is passive manipulation while shattering rocks is active. So the Imagine Breaker is able to punch through ki blasts, battle auras, and even the most subtle of manipulations such as the happo throw won’t effect it. Category:A Certain Arrogant Horse